


Very Close Friends

by PinguinoSentado



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Coming Out, F/F, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 16:12:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12461295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinguinoSentado/pseuds/PinguinoSentado
Summary: Chloe is having trouble coping with her feelings for a certain girl in her life. As Blackwell's resident expert, Steph Gingrich is more than happy to help her out.Short one-off story about Chloe coming to terms with who she is. Comments of all sorts are welcome. You can find me on Tumblr under pinguinosentado.





	Very Close Friends

Chloe Price. So suave, so aloof, so well-cast in her role of vagabond. She was a woman of mystery. A force of nature. No one told her what to do and she didn’t care what anyone thought of her. Her creed? Do no harm, take no shit, and give not a single fuck to anyone.

Yeah. It sounded better in her head. God dammit.

_You know you can always talk to me, right?_

Oh sure, Steph, let me just drop my trainload of shitty baggage on you driven by the smoke-spewing engine of that was Rachel Amber. Actually, the image of Rachel the Tank Engine was enough to get a small smile out of the flustered and hopeless Chloe.

Fuck, she needed a smoke. If she was actually thinking about talking to someone about… what was she even going to talk about?

Her fingers ticked through her phone’s screens until they didn’t, moving on their own until the name of the one person she could trust with this appeared in sad little letters. No matter how many times she wished for it, Max was not going to be texting her back. No matter how badly she needed her best friend, Chloe Price now worked alone. Which sucked because of course Max would know what to do.

Okay. If Max wasn’t going to help her, that left… shit, no one at all. Rachel would know what to do. But of course she couldn’t just ask her. That wasn’t how this worked. Was it?

Fuck. That’s what she was doing here anyway, wasn’t it? She didn’t know what she was doing and she needed - ugh - she needed help.

She pushed herself off the wall and forced her feet to shuffle forward. Onward, brave dropout, onward. Across the campus she wasn’t supposed to be walking, around the pit of wet cement she totally hadn’t dragged a stick through earlier, her feet squashing the grass with her sneakers just to spite it. Take that, Blackwell. Don’t walk on the rich people’s grass, peasant girl, or you’ll spend the day sweeping chimneys or cleaning out stoves or some shit. Something sooty and horrible for her lungs. Poor people didn’t need those anyway.

Steph noticed her coming but didn’t say anything, focusing on her notebooks and fantasy worlds instead of the real one. Good for her. That park bench could have been anything. Like a throne or the captain’s chair on a spaceship. Or a pirate ship. Yes, please.

Well, wherever Steph was, she was probably waiting for her new best friend to say something clever. Or smart. Ha. Good luck on that one. Welp, no reason to stray from the classics. Chloe took a quick step toward the bench, hopped on top of the magic bench, and plopped down with a satisfying thud.

“Sup, nerd?”

Not her best line but not every one of them could be. Steph didn’t even look up. “Hey, Chloe.”

Chloe settled back, grinning and playing it cool, as she always did, while she tried desperately to think of some not-horrible way to start this. She was supposed to have thought of something by now. She’d had the whole walk over here to think of something. Why did she even get up, again?

Wait, was Steph talking? “Huh?”

“At least appreciate the art if you’re going to be snooping through my shit.”

What the hell was she - oh, the notebook. Chloe hadn’t even noticed she had started leafing through it. Huh. It was actually really good. Like, really good. “Not bad, dude. Got any girls in here?”

Steph didn’t answer but Chloe was honestly happier this way. She needed something to start on. Take this seriously. Rachel was worth being a little embarrassed over.

Steph continued not saying anything, giving Chloe all the time she could ever want to think about how to start this horribly awkward conversation. It didn’t help much. Maybe she should just get it out. Shit, she was supposed to be the blunt one. Actually, one of those might have helped her get through this. Very punny. Max would have appreciated it. She also would have known what to say here.

No dice, Chloe Price. Just gotta power through.

“Hey.”

Steph looked up from her notebook, slowly putting her pencil down in the crease of the page. “Hey.”

“So. Uh. You said - are you, like, busy? ‘Cause I can come back. I’m not - actually I’m not supposed to be here, like, at all. So if you’ve got shit going on…”

As Chloe fidgeted on the seat, Steph finished closing her book and tilted her head, the wise old owl that would tell Chloe what to do. Well, that was what she was supposed to be doing. She actually wasn’t saying anything at all and making Chloe think this was a giant waste of her very valuable time.

“Alright. I’ll just - I’ll be blunt. That’s my thing.”

“Okay.”

Chloe puffed up, looked Steph in the eyes, and released all the air in her body in a long, wrong-kind-of-blunt sigh. “Uhhhhhh…”

“Take your time.”

“Dude, don’t rush me.”

“I’m not.”

“Good. Because this isn’t, like, something I do for everyone.”

Steph looked entirely too pleased with that. “Oh, I know.”

“Well, good.”

“I’m actually really happy you chose to talk to me about this.”

“About - oh. Uh. Well, cool. Yep. Glad I could do that. For you…”

Steph continued to sit there, quietly, perched on the edge of the bench, waiting for Chloe to just gut herself and spill her deepest secrets all over the ground. She looked way too happy about this. And she just said she was happy about this. This wasn’t supposed to be a happy thing. What the fuck, Steph?

Ugh. Come on, Price. Get it together.

“So. I wanted to talk to you. About…” Chloe puffed herself up again, looked her right in the eyes again, and this time actually managed to get out a word or two. “About Rachel.”

The wise, beanie-wearing owl ruffled her feathers. “She is something else, isn’t she?”

“God, she really is.”

Steph did a little head bob with every point she made. “Perfect student, perfect actress, perfect hair...”

“Yeah…”

“Not like you at all.”

“Dude, you are not helping. At all.”

Steph shrugged. “Hey, just making observations.”

“Well, observe something more helpful. And then tell me about it because I am like completely out of my depth here.”

“I am as helpful as you let me be, Chloe.”

“I’m fucking serious. I thought you were supposed to be… you know… good at this shit.”

Steph had herself a nice little laugh as Chloe very seriously considered taking that stupid beanie off her head and chucking it into the wet cement. That would teach her.

“Well, what’s on your mind? What about Rachel Amber has Chloe Price so turned around?”

Oh God. “Have you met her? Fuck that, have you even looked at her? She’s perfect. She’s funny and she’s smart and she’s everyone’s best friend because she just is so good at everything.”

Chloe clamped her mouth shut and tried to will away the flush now spreading over her face. She was not this crazy about Rachel. She wasn’t this crazy about anyone, dammit. This was ridiculous. This happened to other people. Not her.

Cue the sage nodding from her asshole counselor. “And you’ve been lucky enough to become good friends with her.”

“I - I hope so. It’s… I can’t believe it. When I think about it. It doesn’t even make sense. She shouldn’t even know I exist but… well…”

“Go on.”

“I’m trying, dude. Fucking let me figure my own shit out here. Sorry. She’s just… we started hanging out yesterday. And now, when I think about how shitty everything was before, I get all… I don’t know.”

“You wish it had happened sooner?”

“Yeah. Way, way sooner. I - sorry, that’s probably, like, way deeper than you wanted to go.”

“That’s alright. You can tell me anything, Chloe.”

“Uh, yeah. Thanks, dude, but you’re not paid enough to listen to that epic list of shit.” Chloe did her best to stay on the bench instead of hauling ass literally anywhere else. Instead, she coughed, fidgeted, kicked at the grass, and stared blankly at the notebook still sitting in her hands.

Yeah. Great idea, Price. Great fucking idea. Should have just stayed home or -

“Well, it sounds like you’re really close to her.”

Chloe felt herself wince. “I guess. I don’t know. Wait, isn’t that what I’m here for?”

“That depends. What are you here for?”

“I don’t know, because you…” Every word came out forced, every syllable sharp and somehow horribly painful to get out. “You’re, well, into this stuff and I’m not. I’m new at this.”

“Into…”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, what is it with you guys making me actually say it out loud?”

“You guys?” Steph sat up and scooted a little closer on the bench, adding to the insufferable discomfort. “So Rachel -”

“Yeah. Fucking asked me straight out. Right after I found out she’s actually just as fucked up as I am. Which is crazy because she’s not supposed to be…”

“Like you?”

Chloe shot a glare at Steph but found her looking like the world’s most perfect listener. She put it back in the deck. “Yeah, actually. It sucks.”

“I thought you would have liked finding flaws in Little Miss Perfect.”

“Sure, last week I would have been stoked to find out she was just as screwed up as me. Now I just… I want to help. Or some shit. Because I don’t know how to help with anything, let alone the kind of shit she’s going through right now.”

Steph sat back, still too close to Chloe for comfort but now looking very… wait, what was that look for?

After what must have been a few hours, Chloe decided to ask. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s great. I’m here spilling my guts and you’re -”

“It’s just sweet. That’s all.”

“It’s what now?”

Steph’s shit-eating smile grew a little wider. “You’re worried about her.”

“Of course I’m fucking worried, look how I turned out!”

“I don’t know. I think you do alright.”

“Wow, thanks, Steph. Why don’t you try dropping out, too? It’s what all the cool kids are doing.”

“So, Chloe Price, tough, punk-rock dropout with a heart of gold -”

“Fuck off.”

“- is worried about Rachel Amber -”

“Ugh.”

“- becoming just as fucked up as she is?”

“It’s not just that!”

“And what else is there?”

“She’s…” Chloe tried to sink into the bench but only Steph could turn it into a therapist’s couch. Chloe would just have to make do. “She makes me feel like I’m not a total fuckup. There. I said it. Happy? She makes me feel like I’m good for something. Like I matter.”

The snappy comeback never came, and Chloe was left staring at her hands, wanting the words to say themselves.

“She’s amazing. When I’m with her, I feel like anything is possible. Suddenly it doesn’t matter that I got kicked out of Blackwell. It doesn’t matter that I’ll probably end up waiting tables instead of… whatever I’m supposed to be doing with my life. Shit, she makes me feel like I could actually do something with my life. You know?”

Steph was smiling warmly. “Yeah. I know what you mean.”

“Well, that’s how she makes me feel. So there. It’s still all about Chloe. I want to… be with her because she makes me feel like a real person again. Not just the chain-smoking, angry kid with the dead dad. You know I tried to fix a car for her? Like a full-on, trashed-to-shit junker that I found in an actual fucking junkyard. I’m there pulling the battery out and stealing shit from piles of garbage because I wanted to make it work for her. And not even like ‘hey, Rachel, I got this sweet ride, let’s blow this town.’ I just wanted to do something - build something instead of smashing it. That’s just what she makes me feel like.”

“Like a whole person.”

“Yeah. Like… like that.”

The courtyard remained mercifully quiet. Chloe had actually forgotten where they were. Shit, she was really baring her soul on BlackHell grounds? How far had she fallen?

As much as she hated to admit it, it was actually very peaceful here. The birds sang in the trees, the wind wandered lazily through the greenest grass anywhere in Oregon, and not a living soul was seen or heard. Samuel was probably out on the other side of the building painting over the latest graffiti. He should pick a color besides white. If you paint your art school to look like a canvas, what do you think is going to happen?

Chloe found herself fiddling with the marker in her pocket. Anything to keep from thinking about Rachel. Except that she really liked thinking about Rachel. So why did she want to not think about her while still thinking about her all the time? How did that even work? God dammit Max, answer your damn texts.

And now Steph was being just as unhelpful, sitting there all smug and silent and grinning like an idiot.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Well, help me! Isn’t that what you’re here for? What the fuck am I supposed to do about this?”

“It seems pretty obvious to me.”

“Of course it seems obvious to you, that’s why you’re supposed to be helping me!”

Steph pushed a bit of hair back inside her beanie and shifted one leg up to the bench, fidgeting until she was sitting on it. “Have you told her any of this?”

“Fuck no! I’m not - I don’t want to - I -”

She wasn’t actually sure what she was going to say after that. She wasn’t like that? Uh huh. Try again, Price. She didn’t want to scare her off? She’d already done that at least once, though to be fair that ended with Rachel setting half of Oregon on fire, so they’d both done their fair share of being unstable.

Which was why she was talking to Steph. This was all new to her. She wasn’t sure how to even talk about it. Was it okay to just… ask about? I mean, Steph clearly didn’t give a shit, but someone always did. Would her mom? Would Rachel’s? What about - well, actually that was all the people she could think of, but still. There would always be people being weird about it. What if Rachel was weird about it? What if Chloe was just imagining things? They were just friends and she was moving too fast and taking things too far because poor baby Chloe finally had someone looking out for her and so that meant they loved her.

And also she probably should have been telling Steph that. Fuck.

“You’re worried about telling her?”

Thank you, Steph the Psychic. “Yeah. Something like that.”

“I get that.”

Chloe felt something barbed rolling to the end of her tongue but stopped before she spat it out. Even if she didn’t know already, the way Steph was talking, she wasn’t saying this lightly. “I… bet you do.”

“Can I tell you a story?”

“Yes, please.”

“The first girl I asked out? I was terrified. It was a long time ago. We were best friends and I started to think of her as…”

“More than a friend?”

“As a very, very close friend. I was, uh, younger.”

Chloe chuckled. “I think I know what you mean.”

“And I didn’t know what I was doing until it sort of hit me. I mean really hit me. Like a train. I remember thinking about it and panicking and thinking there was something wrong with me. I started avoiding her because I didn’t want to talk about it. But I didn’t want to avoid her because, well, you know.”

“How did that work out for you?”

“Badly. Also she lived across the street, so, it didn’t work for very long, either. I was not exactly committed to it, either.”

 _Who does that remind you of, Chloe?_ She felt herself start to smile. “Nice.”

“Hey, you had your story time.”

“Sorry. Just taking notes.”

“Well then I’ll put it in bullet format: do not do that. Find a way to talk about it. Because you care about her, and she cares about you, and that isn’t going away. There are times when you have to hide who you are. Sometimes it isn’t safe talking about stuff like this. It sucks, but that’s just something we have to live with.”

“We?”

Steph shrugged easily. God, she made it all look so damn easy. “Welcome to the club, Price. Anyway, this doesn’t have to be one of those times. If you are really that close with her, she’ll understand, even if she doesn’t feel the same way.”

Chloe turned Steph’s notebook over in her hands, flipping it end over end and wondering what to say next. She had kept enough inside for this little session. Maybe she should try just saying what was on her mind. That usually worked out. Except for that time she got expelled doing it.

_Actually… yeah. Weird metric for success, Chloe._

“So, uh… what happened?”

Steph was quiet, her eyes going distant and making Chloe physically wince. She tried to fix it. “Shit. Sorry, I wasn’t -”

“I don’t regret it.”

“Huh?”

“It sucked. After she… let’s say she told me no and leave it at that. Well, after she did, I was left alone. My best friend was gone and I didn’t feel like I’d ever have another. How could I? The same thing would just happen over and over again. I felt helpless. And honestly, sometimes I still think about it. I feel like I ruined something I should have kept going because I was selfish. I know that it would have hurt for a while but I told myself that it was better to tell the truth about it. I moved on. It helped me grow. But, most of all, I think it had to be that way.”

“You do?”

“Let’s say she’d said yes. Let’s say this is you and Rachel. Imagine her saying yes.”

“Oh.”

“And now imagine never having the courage to ask.”

“I… yeah. I can see that.”

“It can’t always be like that, Chloe. If I had never asked her, I never would have asked the first girl that said yes. I never would have been me, you know? I’m not saying it’s easy, and I’m not saying she’ll say yes, I’m just telling you my story. It’s like I said. Sometimes, it’s better not to say anything because some people don’t deserve to know. If you don’t think Rachel should know, then don’t tell her. But if she does… don’t wait around wondering forever, Chloe.”

Chloe blinked, looking up at Steph and wondering how she had never known that about her. She’d just imagined her being born like this: liking girls and not giving a fuck if someone didn’t like her for it.

Which was how she wanted to be. “Or you’ll make a move first?”

Steph actually laughed. “Damn right I will. You’ve got competition.”

“Yeah, well. I’ve never been good at being patient, anyway.”

There were people she could imagine not telling. Her mom probably wouldn’t care, but David? Fuck that. God, just thinking about that pissed her off so bad she wanted to go tell Rachel out of spite. That would show him.

Steph scooted back to the edge of the bench, picking her book up and giving Chloe a weird look. “Listen. I’ll be here if you want to talk again.”

Suddenly the bench grew a thousand splinters, forcing Chloe to her feet. “Uh thanks but this is way, way more than I usually talk to anyone, so I’m just gonna -”

“I mean after.”

“Oh.”

“Whatever happens, just come back and tell me. Okay?”

Whatever happens. Oh, boy. “Yeah. Yeah, sure thing.”

Chloe found herself looking around the quad, terrified at the sight of the sun beginning to set. Shit. The play would be starting soon. That meant being able to see Rachel backstage. Rachel. In a dressing room. Probably with tons of people around and shit but… wait what if it was just them? Alone? In a tent. With all these stupid thoughts Steph had just put in her stupid head. Shit. Shit, this was going to go so, so badly.

“You should get going.” Steph said, idly pulling out her phone. “The show will be starting soon.”

It wasn’t until she started freaking out that she realized the text was probably from Mikey. Then she was gone, off to the hospital to check up on her loyal wizard and his badly-bloodied brother. Chloe’s heart went out to them. Steph was a real hero, abandoning the show she loved so much at the drop of a hat. Just to be there for her friend.

Chloe wandered out of the courtyard and found herself starting toward the stage. Well, whatever happened, it would be better after she said something. Fuck, it would probably be over by the weekend, with how fast things were going. See? Nothing to worry about. She’d already gotten expelled, David was moving in, and Rachel was plotting their getaway to God-knows-where. What could possibly go wrong by telling Rachel she had a massive crush on her?

Oh, yeah. This was going to go great.


End file.
